Die design and building is a critical part of a successful extrusion process. ironing—vertically squeezing the metal between the punch and the die to increase the surface area—helps refine the extruding process, as does preforming.

When you stamp 100 million automotive parts annually, as does Tennessee Stampings LLC, Portland, Tenn., you might accept die collisions as just part of the "traffic statistics." Not so. Before the dies ever hit the high-speed presses, they are properly sensored to prevent downtime, accelerate production.

Sensor-driven errorproofing can help metal stamping shops prevent the production of bad parts. In addition, it can save tens of thousands of dollars in lost production due to crashed dies and downtime. How? Sensors detect the presence of metal—as material being fed into the press, being positioned, or ejected from the press as a stamped part or slug.

The use of high-strength steels (HSS) and aluminum in automotive and other stamping manufacturing is creating forming challenges for tool and die engineers. Forming simulation software, formerly used to predict conventional failure causes, now also enables the stamping tool and die engineer to simulate secondary operations, including springback to avoid expensive and time-consuming die tryouts.